Stargazers
by K. Elisabeth
Summary: Those who we love in life are like stars... even after they have died, their light continues to shine from the heavens. Oneshot, postLMR, Dizzie.


**A/N:** This was originally a songfic to the song "The Truth About Heaven" by Armor for Sleep, but gets mad at me whenever I post songfics, so I edited out the lyrics. I don't think it has quite the same feel without them, but you can be the judges of that. It's a sort of Dizzie fic, set post-LMR, kind of AU but not terribly so. Enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Grey's Anatomy, because if I did, I would be far too busy making the show to write fanfics about my own show that I was producing.

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**Stargazers**

I wish he could feel how much I miss him. Standing in this cemetery, shivering despite that it's a relatively warm evening for Seattle, and humid – not the type of weather you'd be cold in. I'm cold all over. I can't stop being cold. Missing him makes me cold all the time. The sun is going down fast, throwing long shadows across the rolling grassy landscape, broken only by scattered tombstones. It just goes on and on, so expansive and so empty. I'm the only person here right now, and I am so alone.

_I wish she could feel me here. She's the only person who's visited my grave – I didn't leave much family behind when I left, and most of my friends are just now finding out. Not that I had a lot of friends – people just stop visiting once you've been in the hospital for months and months. I don't blame them a damn bit; it's a depressing place to be._

I bought a bouquet of flowers from one of the shops on my way here. They're tulips; I vaguely remember him saying he thought they were pretty, like me. And now I can't stop crying.

There's nowhere to sit nearby – a bench about 30 feet away, but I want to be close – so I sit on the ground. The grass is crunchy and dry, which is good, because it means no grass stains on my clothes. Those are so hard to get out. Not that it matters, I haven't worn anything decent in the past weeks since Denny died. Old jeans, raggedy t-shirts. I haven't done much of anything, actually. Lying around the house, crying, ignoring everyone. I feel bad about it, honest to God I do, but I can't bring myself to talk to anyone. Talking about it is too hard, and that's all they want to talk about. I know they're trying to help, but they're not.

_She looks so sad. I would hope the more time passes, the happier she'd be, but she doesn't look happy at all. I can see it in her face every time she comes here, two or three times a week; she's so sad. Her eyes don't light up the way they used to, she doesn't smile anymore. She just sits and watches that tombstone, like something is going to pop out of it. Like maybe I'll pop out of it and say, "You just got Punk'd!" and kiss her and we'll be okay again. I wish so bad that I could do that for her. More than anything._

I wonder if I stare at the polished white marble tomb marker long enough, if something won't happen to it. Maybe it'll blow up, or maybe Denny will jump out from behind it, yell "Surprise!" and hold me the way he used to. Maybe it'll suck me into whatever place he went to after he died. I don't know. I don't even know why I think about half the things I think anymore, it's as if grief opened up a Pandora's Box of strange and troubling thoughts and emotions.

_She can't see me here – nobody can. I always heard ghost stories and stories about angels when I was a kid and how they could show up and talk to the people they left behind, but that doesn't really happen. I can come here and sit and stare at her all I want, but I can't touch her, can't hold her, can't whisper into her ear and hope she'll hear me, because she won't. I can hear her, but she can't hear me, and I think that's so cruel. She can't see me, she can't hear me, but I can see and hear her. It's not fair to her. I'd give anything to turn it around._

I'd give anything to hear his voice again. That deep, husky, gruff voice that sounded kind of like he gargled a handful of gravel at some point in his life. Like a mountain. I couldn't get enough of it – I could listen to him talk about anything, just to hear the sound of his voice. I can't hear him anymore. Even in my memory it's hard to remember just what he sounded like. It's funny, the things you wish you could remember, the memories you do and don't hold onto. It hasn't been that long, a month maybe, but it's already beginning to slip out of my grasp, and I'm trying so hard to hold on. To the memories, to my sanity, to everything. Sometimes I just feel like lying down on the ground and grabbing hold of something, because it feels like I might fly off of the earth.

_I just don't want her to give up hope that things will get better. If I could tell her anything, it would be that the sun still rises every morning, and every day is a day she has that I don't. She'll see me eventually, and then there's eternity after that – a whole blessed eternity, that just doesn't end. But life does, and she can't waste it. I wish I could tell her that so bad. But I found out there's no point in wishing – that doesn't get you anything, not even up here._

Some days I can't get up. The grief is so immensely overwhelming; it's so painful, that I can't get up. I can barely move, because I feel like a 400 pound rock is pressing down on my chest, and all I can do is cry and squirm and wrap my arms around my pillow and pretend so hard that it's Denny. I shut my eyes and smell the pillowcase and half-expect to smell that familiar, comforting, warm smell that was him, but instead it just smells like me, and I need a shower because I barely do that anymore so that is not exactly a pleasant smell.

I just wonder if it's worth it sometimes. Getting up, I mean. Every day I get up is just as painful, or more so, than the days I just refuse altogether. Maybe I can just lay there for the rest of my life. Or lay here. This grass is nice. I could just lie here forever, until they carve up a headstone for me too, and then I go to that place where he is. That would be nice.

_I walk over to where she is, and I sit down next to her. Of course she won't know that; she can't see me, can't hear me, very rarely do people even feel the presence of it. So I'll just sit here, a quiet observer, and watch her. The tears that roll down her face, the way she stares at my grave vacantly, her thoughts going to places I can only imagine. Her face is dark, it's lonely, it's so scared, and it makes me want to cry too. But I can't. It's dark now, and she should really go home. The sun has long since set, and while I don't get cold, she does – it's probably cold out, though I wouldn't know. She hasn't stopped shivering since she got here._

It's dark now. The sky is inky but not black, more of a navy color. There's a lot of light pollution from the city, but I can still see a lot of stars. Denny had talked about stargazing sometime, when he got out of the hospital. He said he'd take me far out, where there was no light pollution, and we'd sit in a field or on a mountain and just look at all of them. He said there's more than I could believe, more than you could count in a lifetime. He said some of them are dead, too, but you can still see their light anyway. It takes a long time for the light of the stars to disappear once they die. Something scientific, but I think it's beautifully poetic – even after one dies, their light shines on. He laughed, he thought it was cute. Now we'll never get to stargaze.

_I know what she's thinking now, because she's looking up at those stars like she's missing something awful. I told her once that we'd go stargazing, she really liked the idea. Thought stars were poetic – I think she reads too much, but it was cute. I wish I could've taken her out so she could see real stars, not the few that show up outside of the city. All of the constellations, all of the little stars that are somehow connected into something bigger. Just like us – pieces of something bigger. Oh God, now I sound like her. All that Scrabble rubbed off on me._

I read something once, I think it was in a collection of quotes. It was an Eskimo proverb that said, maybe stars are really openings in the sky through which the love of our lost ones shines down on us from heaven, to let us know they are happy. That's such a good thought. I hope Denny is happy, up there, if there is an 'up there'. I hope some of that light is his, because he said between a life on earth and a life in heaven, he'd choose heaven. I don't blame him. All his pain, all his suffering, he deserved a break more than anyone. I just wish it could've been different. Every time I look at the night sky, with all the stars in it, I think of him. I know I always will, too. Maybe I won't be as sad in the future when I look up there; maybe now it's even improving a little bit.

_There's that smile. It's weak, it's hardly there, but it is. She must be thinking something happy. I hope to God she is; she deserves it. More than anyone I know, she deserves to be happy. She tries so hard to make everyone else happy, she deserves it herself. I hope she falls in love again; I don't want her ability to love someone deeply to have been buried with my casket. I just want her to be happy, and love would make her happy. I can love her, but only from beyond. She deserves a love that can hold her and kiss her and make her feel safe, something I can't do from where I am. I wish I could. I wish just loving her as much as I do would be enough to bring me back, to take me to a place where I could hug her, could kiss her, could make her feel safe._

I'm not alone. I can feel that. I'm not alone, even if I feel so alone at the same time. I know he's looking out for me, watching over me. When you lose a loved one on earth, you gain an angel in heaven – I heard that at a funeral once, maybe Denny's, I can't really remember. That whole day was a blur to me.

It's time for me to go. It's dark, and now I'm shivering and I think it's because of the cold too, since there's no light anywhere to keep me warm. Normally I would be spooked out by being in a cemetery at night, in the dark, by myself… but I'm not by myself. I don't feel by myself, anyway. I feel like I have company.

_She's getting ready to get up, and that makes me feel a pang of sadness in my chest like I haven't felt since I died. I wish we could sit here together and stare at the stars forever, and she could fall into my arms and I could hold her and we could be safe and happy together. I wish that could happen._

I'm about to get up, but I feel something pulling at me, as if something in me doesn't want to get up – something in me wants to stay rooted to this spot forever, and wait until Denny comes along to pick me up and hold me in his arms, and we can be together. God, if only that could happen. If only he could be here with me, looking at these beautiful stars that make me think of him in a way that hurts so bad, but makes part of me a little bit happier at the same time.

_If my love for her was enough, she would be able to see me sitting next to her, looking at these beautiful stars together._

If all the love I ever felt for him was enough, he'd be sitting next to me right now, looking at the stars with me. He'd hold me and we'd be together and nothing could ever tear us apart.

_Unfortunately, love is not enough._

It's too bad that love is not enough

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**A/N:** Your reviews and con-crit are appreciated! Was it too AU? Did it work well without the lyrics inserted? Let me know and good review karma comes your way. -grin-


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